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LITERARY LANDMARK - St. Mary's Hospital, 4339 Garden Bay Road, Pender Harbour.
Renovated and re-opened as the Sundowner Inn in 1964, the original St. Mary's Hospital opened in Garden Bay on August 16, 1930, thanks largely to the efforts of John Antle, head of the Coast Columbia Mission. In 1953, St. Mary's turned over to a local board of directors. The existence of this remote hospital was the reason Elizabeth Smart came to Pender Harbour, where she wrote her slim but classic novel, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. She wanted to be near a hospital when she gave birth to her out-of-wedlock child.
QUICK REFERENCE ENTRY:
Lonely, single, pregnant but above all fiercely in love--perhaps with love itself--Elizabeth Smart stepped off the steamer Lady Cynthia at Irvine's Landing in Pender Harbour, B.C., in April of 1941. The world was at war and she sought solitude.
Eight months later she left Pender Harbour, having produced her first-born child, Georgina Barker, fathered by poet George Barker, as well as her rhapsodic lament entitled By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945). Smart's unusual upper class background and her bohemian lifestyle has charmed and appalled readers ever since. Smart's lifelong, masochistic devotion to the Englishman George Barker--by whom she bore four children without ever living with him--was either staunchly heroic or downright daft. Take your pick.
Born to an affluent family in Ottawa in 1913, Smart was sent to London to be educated. There she picked up a small book of poetry by George Barker, a protege of T.S. Eliot, and, as the story goes, decided then and there, sight unseen, that she would marry him and have his children. Along the way she met the likes of Henry Miller and Picasso, and lost her virginity to the flamboyant and arrogant painter Jean Varda in Cassis, France.
In Mexico, Smart attended a birthday party of the renowned Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and had an affair with Alice Paalen. Varda showed up in Mexico and he and Smart ended up living together in Big Sur, California, in an artists' colony. In California, Smart wrote a novella based on her lesbian experiences with Paalen entitled "Dig A Grave and Let Us Bury Our Mother." It would appear in In The Meantime (1984).
Smart had previously been in touch with poet George Barker, buying an original manuscript and exchanging letters. Smart had sent some poems to Lawrence Durrell in 1938 and he had suggested Smart and Barker should meet because Barker, who was teaching in Japan, was short of money. Barker approached Smart for funds to flee the country. Smart met him in Monterey and was taken aback to discover he had his wife with him. It is this scene which opens By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Despite the presence of Mrs. Barker in Mexico, the pair were soon having an intense affair which resulted in Smart's first pregnancy.
In Pender Harbour, Smart lived in one of three shacks near the mouth of the harbour and painted her door yellow, adding a line from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell above it, "The cut worm forgives the plough." Barker visited briefly early in her pregnancy. She made a few friends, the most remarkable being Vienna-born Maximiliane Von Upani Southwell ("Maxie"), some 20 years her senior.
As Smart's pregnancy and manuscript neared completion, Maxie took her in, despite her own poverty, and assisted her. Elizabeth Smart, in return, dedicated By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept to Maxie.
When Barker tried to visit Smart a second time during the pregnancy, Smart's mother and father used their Ottawa connections to have him banned from Canada for "moral turpitude." Her father Russell S. Smart, of the law firm Smart and Biggar, owned a cottage on Kingsmere Lake (called The Barge) next to Mackenzie King. They had been neighbours long before King became Prime Minister. Barker was stopped at the border.
The love child was born in August and Smart left Canada on December 7, 1941--the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbour--leaving the infant with Maxie in order to meet up with Barker.
He failed to meet her at Grand Central Station.
"A pen is a furious weapon," she later wrote, in Rogues & Rascals, "But it needs a rage of will. Everything physical dies but you can send a mad look to the end of time."
Elizabeth Smart left Canada for England in 1984 and died there at age 72, two years later.
Elizabeth Smart once said, "It's a natural feeling to want to have a baby when you're really in love. Every woman feels it and I think men do, too, when they're really involved. A woman is a man with a womb, that's what the word means. It's not a man without something, it's a man with something and that something is a womb. I wanted these female experiences."
[There is a fascinating footnote to Elizabeth Smart's life, regarding Norman Bethune. It has come to light that Elizaeth Smart was given a round-trip ticket to sail to England by her father as a way for the family to extricate her from an affair with Graham Spry, a Canadian socialist. Whether she gave the ticket to Spry, or whether he 'seduced it out of her,' cannot be known for certain, but it has come to light that Spry gave the ticket to Bethune. Therefore Smart's arch-conservative father inadvertently enabled the leftist womanizer Norman Bethune to fight in the Spanish Civil War for the rebels against the right wing Franco dictatorship. Other reports have stated it was Smart's sister, Jane, who gave Bethune the ticket. Regardless, the Conservative Party bagman facilitated Bethune's journey from Canada. It happened because Graham Spry had set up a non-existent CCF committee to send doctors to Spain to help the Republic. Spry put an ad in newspapers asking for doctors to volunteer. The only doctor to reply was Bethune. The non-existent committee had no money so Spry got the steamship ticket from either Elizabeth Smart or Jane Smart aka Jane Smart Marsh Beveridge.]
FULL ENTRY:
Lonely, single, pregnant but above all fiercely in love, perhaps with love itself, Elizabeth Smart stepped off the steamer Lady Cynthia at Irvine's Landing in Pender Harbour, B.C. in April of 1941; the world was at war and she sought solitude. Eight months later she left, having produced her first born, Georgina Barker, along with a remarkable novel/memoir entitled By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Her personality, like her writing, was controversial. Smart seemed to either completely captivate people with her charm and unusual upper class/Bohemian lifestyle, or alienate others due to her masochistic devotion to English poet George Barker--by whom she bore four children without ever living with him--or her excessive use of alcohol to medicate an anguished part of her psyche centred around rejection by her mother. It has been said that in her own histrionic way, she helped manufacture a myth surrounding her life and writing, often exaggerating or bending the truth to achieve the desired effect.
Elizabeth Smart was born in Ottawa to a fairly affluent family on December 27, 1913. They entertained the likes of Lester B. Pearson, Sir Stafford and Lady Cripps, CBC founder Graham Spry and British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald. Their cottage in the Gatineau hills was next door to Prime Minister MacKenzie King's cottage. They were included in the society pages of the time. Smart was sent to private schools and, upon graduation, went to study in London, England. There she had a relationship with Lord John Pentland, attended the King's coronation and partied at Buckingham Palace. It was also in England that she picked up a small book of poetry by George Barker, a protege of T.S. Eliot's, and supposedly decided then and there, sight unseen, that she would marry him and have his children.
But there were a few diversions along the way. In 1938 at a party she met Jean Varda, a flamboyant and arrogant painter of Greek origins who lived in a run-down, 22-room mansion in Cassis, France. Smart was invited to accompany Varda and a group of friends to Cassis. Others who had stayed there were Picasso, Braque and Miro. Henry Miller was a big fan of Varda who also attracted the attention of the ladies. It was here with Varda that Smart is said to have had her first sexual experience. Eventually stifled by Varda, she went to Mexico to escape and visit friends Wolfgang and Alice Paalen. He was a surrealist painter she had met in Paris. While in Mexico, Smart attended, with the Paalens, the birthday of renowned Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The Paalens were living in a menage a trois with a Swiss friend. Both women were supportive of the needy artist "like a pair of crutches". Wolfgang Paalen attempted to entice Smart to the same role but she rebuffed his advances. Smart did, however, have a lesbian relationship with Alice Paalen, who Anais Nin described to Henry Miller as looking "like a Mexican-Indian woman". Varda showed up in Mexico and he and Smart ended up living together in Big Sur, California in an artists' colony, even though she was becoming less and less enthralled with his charm. In California Smart wrote a novel based on her lesbian experiences with Paalen entitled Dig A Grave and Let Us Bury Our Mother. It would appear posthumously, edited by Alice VanWart, as In The Meantime in 1984.
Smart had previously been in touch with poet George Barker, buying an original manuscript and exchanging letters. Smart had sent some poems to Lawrence Durrell in 1938 and he had suggested Smart and Barker should meet--because Barker was short of money. At this point, with Barker teaching in Japan and Japan about to enter the war, Barker approached her for funds to flee the country. The money was raised. Smart met him in Monterey and was taken aback to discover he had his wife with him. It is this scene which opens By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Smart found a wooden hut in the wilds of Big Sur, California where they lived as friends until the inevitable happened. In the novel she wrote, "Under the waterfall he surprised me bathing and gave me what I could no more refuse than the earth can refuse the rain." Despite the presence of Mrs. Barker, the pair were soon having a sexual affair which resulted in Smart's pregnancy. Eventually they came to Canada, were rebuffed by her Ottawa family and ended up in Vancouver in a run-down hotel room with very little money, a state Barker found himself in for most of his life. Just how she came to choose Pender Harbour to have her child and write her famous novel is a bit of a mystery. She later stated she just stuck a pin in a map and got on the steamship. But in her diaries at the time, it is evident she had been in Pender Harbour previously for a holiday with Barker and an affluent American friend with whom Barker left Smart and Canada. In 1982 Smart told an interviewer that Barker had 14 'conspicuous children' and as many as 35 in total, but she was known to exaggerate for effect.
Smart's time in Pender Harbour was uneventful. She lived in one of three shacks near the mouth of the harbour and painted her door yellow, adding a sign above it, 'The cut worm forgives the plough'. Reading Rilke in a tiny logging and fishing community, she was an outsider who was linked to the outside world by the little post office. Barker arrived for a visit early in her pregnancy. For some reason the RCMP appeared on her doorstep one day and found her to be a "religious maniac". She made a few friends, the most remarkable being Vienna-born Maximiliane Von Upani Southwell, some 20 years her senior. As Smart's pregnancy and manuscript came near completion, Maxie took her in, despite her own poverty, and assisted her. Elizabeth Smart, in return, dedicated By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept to Maxie. When Barker tried to visit Smart a second time during the pregnancy, Smart's mother used their Ottawa connections to keep him out of Canada. Barker was stopped at the border. Elizabeth Smart used her own Ottawa ties to get Barker a job at the British Army Office in Washington. After their child was born in August, Smart left Canada on December 7, 1941--the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbour--leaving Georgina with Maxie in order to meet up with Barker. He failed to meet her at Grand Central Station.
Smart connected with Barker, taking a clerical job in the British Army Office in Washington, D.C. When she gained a promotion to the Information Office of the British embassy, she reclaimed Georgina. Pregnant again, she sailed for England in a convoy in 1943, this time to escape from Barker. Her ship was torpedoed but stayed afloat. "A consenting adult moves on..." she once wrote. Upon her arrival, Smart was told her transfer to a new job in London would not be honoured due to her 'condition'. In England, Smart set about establishing herself as a writer and eventually edited Queen magazine. It has been said she was one of the most influential women in England during this period, but her reputation didn't gain much by publication of her manuscript in 1945. George Barker arranged for 2,000 copies to be printed by a London poetry periodical, with minimal response. After an Ottawa bookstore imported six copies, Smart's mother bought them all and burned them. Even though Smart had not left a forwarding address, George Barker reunited with her in England and fathered her third and fourth children. He had no money and lived with his mother.
One of Elizabeth Smart's co-workers in the magazine trade, Bob Johnson, later told John Goddard for a Books In Canada profile in 1982, "She always seemed to me to be at least half on the way to being smashed. She needed something to keep her going all the time, what with four kids, getting older, the whole George Barker thing, and just the business of getting through life. In the absence of anything else she would grab a can of Cow Gum [layout paste]. She's the first person I ever heard of sniffing glue." The next 40 years in England were extremely interesting for anyone examining Smart's life. She went through a period of frequenting Soho bars and her experiences there were used in her second novel entitled The Assumption of the Rogues and Rascals. She knew Dylan Thomas, photographer John Deakin, Lawrence Durrell, Margaret Drabble, painter Meredith Frampton, and an endless list of poets, artists, authors and others. She also spent years in near solitude at her country cottage. In 1982, with the assistance of poet Patrick Lane who she met at Cambridge, she was brought to the University of Alberta as poet-in-residence but this was not a happy time for Smart or the university. She moved to Toronto and with a Canada Council grant, supported by Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje, she attempted to write with limited success. In 1984 she returned to England where she died at the age of 72 on March 3, 1986.
Whether hanging out in Soho bars with artists and poets, or secluding herself in her remote English country cottage in Suffolk called The Dell, or looking after her grandchildren while her daughter was in drug rehab, Smart was always a puzzle and continues to be. Feminists can fiercely endorse her or reject her, depending which way the wind is blowing. Smart once said, "It's a natural feeling to want to have a baby when you're really in love. Every woman feels it and I think men do, too, when they're really involved. A woman is a man with a womb, that's what the word means. It's not a man without something, it's a man with something and that something is a womb. I wanted these female experiences."
Rosemary Sullivan has written a worthwhile biography entitled By Heart: Elizabeth Smart--A Life and Elizabeth Smart's life has been subject of numerous profiles. "Smart is never coy," wrote Eleanor Wachtel, "she is simply unfathomable." Several volumes of her diaries have been published posthumously, as well as some of her poetry, but its likely her literary reputation will endure on the basis of her first book and her romantic obsession with the seemingly unworthy Barker. In 2004 Canadian novelist Echlin explored the sources for Smart's creativity in a study of her poetry, diaries and prose, augmented with material from many interviews with family, friends and colleagues, for Elizabeth Smart: A Fugue Essay on Women and Creativity. A holograph copy of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is in the National Library of Canada.
BOOKS:
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept (London: Poetry London, 1945; London: Panther Books Ltd, 1966, Toronto: Popular Library, 1966); New York: Popular Library, 1975; London: Polyantric Press, 1977; Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1981)
A Bonus (London: Polyantric Press, 1977) - poetry
The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals (London: Jonathan Cape and Polyantric Press, 1978, Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1978)
Ten Poems (Bath, England: Bath Place Community Arts Press, 1981)
Eleven Poems (Bracknell, England: Owen Kirton Ltd., 1982)
In the Meantime (Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1984). Edited by Alice VanWart.
Necessary Secrets: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart (Toronto: Deneau Publishers, 1986). Edited by Alice VanWart. - Journals.
Juvenilia: Early Writings of Elizabeth Smart (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1987). Edited by Alice VanWart.
Elizabeth Smart (Vancouver: William Hoffer/Tanks, 1987). Edited by Christina Burridge. 'Autobiographies' series.
Elizabeth's Garden: Elizabeth Smart on the Art of Gardening (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1989). Edited by Alice VanWart
On the Side of the Angels (HarperCollins, 1994). Edited by Alice VanWart. - Journals.
ABOUT ELIZABETH SMART:
By Heart: Elizabeth Smart, A Life (Viking, 1991) by Rosemary Sullivan
Elizabeth Smart: A Fugue Essay on Women and Creativity (Women's Press, 2004) by Kim Echlin. 237 pages, $19.95
FILM:
Elizabeth Smart: On The Side Of The Angels (60 min., 1991) directed and written by Maya Gallus, featuring Jackie Burroughs as Elizabeth Smart, narrated by Michael Ondaatje.
DISCUSSION:
There has been an Elizabeth Smart 'chat group' that can be contacted via e-mail at elizabethsmart-subscribe@yahoogroups.ca
[BCBW 2015]
Renovated and re-opened as the Sundowner Inn in 1964, the original St. Mary's Hospital opened in Garden Bay on August 16, 1930, thanks largely to the efforts of John Antle, head of the Coast Columbia Mission. In 1953, St. Mary's turned over to a local board of directors. The existence of this remote hospital was the reason Elizabeth Smart came to Pender Harbour, where she wrote her slim but classic novel, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. She wanted to be near a hospital when she gave birth to her out-of-wedlock child.
QUICK REFERENCE ENTRY:
Lonely, single, pregnant but above all fiercely in love--perhaps with love itself--Elizabeth Smart stepped off the steamer Lady Cynthia at Irvine's Landing in Pender Harbour, B.C., in April of 1941. The world was at war and she sought solitude.
Eight months later she left Pender Harbour, having produced her first-born child, Georgina Barker, fathered by poet George Barker, as well as her rhapsodic lament entitled By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945). Smart's unusual upper class background and her bohemian lifestyle has charmed and appalled readers ever since. Smart's lifelong, masochistic devotion to the Englishman George Barker--by whom she bore four children without ever living with him--was either staunchly heroic or downright daft. Take your pick.
Born to an affluent family in Ottawa in 1913, Smart was sent to London to be educated. There she picked up a small book of poetry by George Barker, a protege of T.S. Eliot, and, as the story goes, decided then and there, sight unseen, that she would marry him and have his children. Along the way she met the likes of Henry Miller and Picasso, and lost her virginity to the flamboyant and arrogant painter Jean Varda in Cassis, France.
In Mexico, Smart attended a birthday party of the renowned Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and had an affair with Alice Paalen. Varda showed up in Mexico and he and Smart ended up living together in Big Sur, California, in an artists' colony. In California, Smart wrote a novella based on her lesbian experiences with Paalen entitled "Dig A Grave and Let Us Bury Our Mother." It would appear in In The Meantime (1984).
Smart had previously been in touch with poet George Barker, buying an original manuscript and exchanging letters. Smart had sent some poems to Lawrence Durrell in 1938 and he had suggested Smart and Barker should meet because Barker, who was teaching in Japan, was short of money. Barker approached Smart for funds to flee the country. Smart met him in Monterey and was taken aback to discover he had his wife with him. It is this scene which opens By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Despite the presence of Mrs. Barker in Mexico, the pair were soon having an intense affair which resulted in Smart's first pregnancy.
In Pender Harbour, Smart lived in one of three shacks near the mouth of the harbour and painted her door yellow, adding a line from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell above it, "The cut worm forgives the plough." Barker visited briefly early in her pregnancy. She made a few friends, the most remarkable being Vienna-born Maximiliane Von Upani Southwell ("Maxie"), some 20 years her senior.
As Smart's pregnancy and manuscript neared completion, Maxie took her in, despite her own poverty, and assisted her. Elizabeth Smart, in return, dedicated By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept to Maxie.
When Barker tried to visit Smart a second time during the pregnancy, Smart's mother and father used their Ottawa connections to have him banned from Canada for "moral turpitude." Her father Russell S. Smart, of the law firm Smart and Biggar, owned a cottage on Kingsmere Lake (called The Barge) next to Mackenzie King. They had been neighbours long before King became Prime Minister. Barker was stopped at the border.
The love child was born in August and Smart left Canada on December 7, 1941--the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbour--leaving the infant with Maxie in order to meet up with Barker.
He failed to meet her at Grand Central Station.
"A pen is a furious weapon," she later wrote, in Rogues & Rascals, "But it needs a rage of will. Everything physical dies but you can send a mad look to the end of time."
Elizabeth Smart left Canada for England in 1984 and died there at age 72, two years later.
Elizabeth Smart once said, "It's a natural feeling to want to have a baby when you're really in love. Every woman feels it and I think men do, too, when they're really involved. A woman is a man with a womb, that's what the word means. It's not a man without something, it's a man with something and that something is a womb. I wanted these female experiences."
[There is a fascinating footnote to Elizabeth Smart's life, regarding Norman Bethune. It has come to light that Elizaeth Smart was given a round-trip ticket to sail to England by her father as a way for the family to extricate her from an affair with Graham Spry, a Canadian socialist. Whether she gave the ticket to Spry, or whether he 'seduced it out of her,' cannot be known for certain, but it has come to light that Spry gave the ticket to Bethune. Therefore Smart's arch-conservative father inadvertently enabled the leftist womanizer Norman Bethune to fight in the Spanish Civil War for the rebels against the right wing Franco dictatorship. Other reports have stated it was Smart's sister, Jane, who gave Bethune the ticket. Regardless, the Conservative Party bagman facilitated Bethune's journey from Canada. It happened because Graham Spry had set up a non-existent CCF committee to send doctors to Spain to help the Republic. Spry put an ad in newspapers asking for doctors to volunteer. The only doctor to reply was Bethune. The non-existent committee had no money so Spry got the steamship ticket from either Elizabeth Smart or Jane Smart aka Jane Smart Marsh Beveridge.]
FULL ENTRY:
Lonely, single, pregnant but above all fiercely in love, perhaps with love itself, Elizabeth Smart stepped off the steamer Lady Cynthia at Irvine's Landing in Pender Harbour, B.C. in April of 1941; the world was at war and she sought solitude. Eight months later she left, having produced her first born, Georgina Barker, along with a remarkable novel/memoir entitled By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Her personality, like her writing, was controversial. Smart seemed to either completely captivate people with her charm and unusual upper class/Bohemian lifestyle, or alienate others due to her masochistic devotion to English poet George Barker--by whom she bore four children without ever living with him--or her excessive use of alcohol to medicate an anguished part of her psyche centred around rejection by her mother. It has been said that in her own histrionic way, she helped manufacture a myth surrounding her life and writing, often exaggerating or bending the truth to achieve the desired effect.
Elizabeth Smart was born in Ottawa to a fairly affluent family on December 27, 1913. They entertained the likes of Lester B. Pearson, Sir Stafford and Lady Cripps, CBC founder Graham Spry and British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald. Their cottage in the Gatineau hills was next door to Prime Minister MacKenzie King's cottage. They were included in the society pages of the time. Smart was sent to private schools and, upon graduation, went to study in London, England. There she had a relationship with Lord John Pentland, attended the King's coronation and partied at Buckingham Palace. It was also in England that she picked up a small book of poetry by George Barker, a protege of T.S. Eliot's, and supposedly decided then and there, sight unseen, that she would marry him and have his children.
But there were a few diversions along the way. In 1938 at a party she met Jean Varda, a flamboyant and arrogant painter of Greek origins who lived in a run-down, 22-room mansion in Cassis, France. Smart was invited to accompany Varda and a group of friends to Cassis. Others who had stayed there were Picasso, Braque and Miro. Henry Miller was a big fan of Varda who also attracted the attention of the ladies. It was here with Varda that Smart is said to have had her first sexual experience. Eventually stifled by Varda, she went to Mexico to escape and visit friends Wolfgang and Alice Paalen. He was a surrealist painter she had met in Paris. While in Mexico, Smart attended, with the Paalens, the birthday of renowned Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The Paalens were living in a menage a trois with a Swiss friend. Both women were supportive of the needy artist "like a pair of crutches". Wolfgang Paalen attempted to entice Smart to the same role but she rebuffed his advances. Smart did, however, have a lesbian relationship with Alice Paalen, who Anais Nin described to Henry Miller as looking "like a Mexican-Indian woman". Varda showed up in Mexico and he and Smart ended up living together in Big Sur, California in an artists' colony, even though she was becoming less and less enthralled with his charm. In California Smart wrote a novel based on her lesbian experiences with Paalen entitled Dig A Grave and Let Us Bury Our Mother. It would appear posthumously, edited by Alice VanWart, as In The Meantime in 1984.
Smart had previously been in touch with poet George Barker, buying an original manuscript and exchanging letters. Smart had sent some poems to Lawrence Durrell in 1938 and he had suggested Smart and Barker should meet--because Barker was short of money. At this point, with Barker teaching in Japan and Japan about to enter the war, Barker approached her for funds to flee the country. The money was raised. Smart met him in Monterey and was taken aback to discover he had his wife with him. It is this scene which opens By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Smart found a wooden hut in the wilds of Big Sur, California where they lived as friends until the inevitable happened. In the novel she wrote, "Under the waterfall he surprised me bathing and gave me what I could no more refuse than the earth can refuse the rain." Despite the presence of Mrs. Barker, the pair were soon having a sexual affair which resulted in Smart's pregnancy. Eventually they came to Canada, were rebuffed by her Ottawa family and ended up in Vancouver in a run-down hotel room with very little money, a state Barker found himself in for most of his life. Just how she came to choose Pender Harbour to have her child and write her famous novel is a bit of a mystery. She later stated she just stuck a pin in a map and got on the steamship. But in her diaries at the time, it is evident she had been in Pender Harbour previously for a holiday with Barker and an affluent American friend with whom Barker left Smart and Canada. In 1982 Smart told an interviewer that Barker had 14 'conspicuous children' and as many as 35 in total, but she was known to exaggerate for effect.
Smart's time in Pender Harbour was uneventful. She lived in one of three shacks near the mouth of the harbour and painted her door yellow, adding a sign above it, 'The cut worm forgives the plough'. Reading Rilke in a tiny logging and fishing community, she was an outsider who was linked to the outside world by the little post office. Barker arrived for a visit early in her pregnancy. For some reason the RCMP appeared on her doorstep one day and found her to be a "religious maniac". She made a few friends, the most remarkable being Vienna-born Maximiliane Von Upani Southwell, some 20 years her senior. As Smart's pregnancy and manuscript came near completion, Maxie took her in, despite her own poverty, and assisted her. Elizabeth Smart, in return, dedicated By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept to Maxie. When Barker tried to visit Smart a second time during the pregnancy, Smart's mother used their Ottawa connections to keep him out of Canada. Barker was stopped at the border. Elizabeth Smart used her own Ottawa ties to get Barker a job at the British Army Office in Washington. After their child was born in August, Smart left Canada on December 7, 1941--the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbour--leaving Georgina with Maxie in order to meet up with Barker. He failed to meet her at Grand Central Station.
Smart connected with Barker, taking a clerical job in the British Army Office in Washington, D.C. When she gained a promotion to the Information Office of the British embassy, she reclaimed Georgina. Pregnant again, she sailed for England in a convoy in 1943, this time to escape from Barker. Her ship was torpedoed but stayed afloat. "A consenting adult moves on..." she once wrote. Upon her arrival, Smart was told her transfer to a new job in London would not be honoured due to her 'condition'. In England, Smart set about establishing herself as a writer and eventually edited Queen magazine. It has been said she was one of the most influential women in England during this period, but her reputation didn't gain much by publication of her manuscript in 1945. George Barker arranged for 2,000 copies to be printed by a London poetry periodical, with minimal response. After an Ottawa bookstore imported six copies, Smart's mother bought them all and burned them. Even though Smart had not left a forwarding address, George Barker reunited with her in England and fathered her third and fourth children. He had no money and lived with his mother.
One of Elizabeth Smart's co-workers in the magazine trade, Bob Johnson, later told John Goddard for a Books In Canada profile in 1982, "She always seemed to me to be at least half on the way to being smashed. She needed something to keep her going all the time, what with four kids, getting older, the whole George Barker thing, and just the business of getting through life. In the absence of anything else she would grab a can of Cow Gum [layout paste]. She's the first person I ever heard of sniffing glue." The next 40 years in England were extremely interesting for anyone examining Smart's life. She went through a period of frequenting Soho bars and her experiences there were used in her second novel entitled The Assumption of the Rogues and Rascals. She knew Dylan Thomas, photographer John Deakin, Lawrence Durrell, Margaret Drabble, painter Meredith Frampton, and an endless list of poets, artists, authors and others. She also spent years in near solitude at her country cottage. In 1982, with the assistance of poet Patrick Lane who she met at Cambridge, she was brought to the University of Alberta as poet-in-residence but this was not a happy time for Smart or the university. She moved to Toronto and with a Canada Council grant, supported by Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje, she attempted to write with limited success. In 1984 she returned to England where she died at the age of 72 on March 3, 1986.
Whether hanging out in Soho bars with artists and poets, or secluding herself in her remote English country cottage in Suffolk called The Dell, or looking after her grandchildren while her daughter was in drug rehab, Smart was always a puzzle and continues to be. Feminists can fiercely endorse her or reject her, depending which way the wind is blowing. Smart once said, "It's a natural feeling to want to have a baby when you're really in love. Every woman feels it and I think men do, too, when they're really involved. A woman is a man with a womb, that's what the word means. It's not a man without something, it's a man with something and that something is a womb. I wanted these female experiences."
Rosemary Sullivan has written a worthwhile biography entitled By Heart: Elizabeth Smart--A Life and Elizabeth Smart's life has been subject of numerous profiles. "Smart is never coy," wrote Eleanor Wachtel, "she is simply unfathomable." Several volumes of her diaries have been published posthumously, as well as some of her poetry, but its likely her literary reputation will endure on the basis of her first book and her romantic obsession with the seemingly unworthy Barker. In 2004 Canadian novelist Echlin explored the sources for Smart's creativity in a study of her poetry, diaries and prose, augmented with material from many interviews with family, friends and colleagues, for Elizabeth Smart: A Fugue Essay on Women and Creativity. A holograph copy of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is in the National Library of Canada.
BOOKS:
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept (London: Poetry London, 1945; London: Panther Books Ltd, 1966, Toronto: Popular Library, 1966); New York: Popular Library, 1975; London: Polyantric Press, 1977; Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1981)
A Bonus (London: Polyantric Press, 1977) - poetry
The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals (London: Jonathan Cape and Polyantric Press, 1978, Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1978)
Ten Poems (Bath, England: Bath Place Community Arts Press, 1981)
Eleven Poems (Bracknell, England: Owen Kirton Ltd., 1982)
In the Meantime (Ottawa: Deneau Publishers, 1984). Edited by Alice VanWart.
Necessary Secrets: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart (Toronto: Deneau Publishers, 1986). Edited by Alice VanWart. - Journals.
Juvenilia: Early Writings of Elizabeth Smart (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1987). Edited by Alice VanWart.
Elizabeth Smart (Vancouver: William Hoffer/Tanks, 1987). Edited by Christina Burridge. 'Autobiographies' series.
Elizabeth's Garden: Elizabeth Smart on the Art of Gardening (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1989). Edited by Alice VanWart
On the Side of the Angels (HarperCollins, 1994). Edited by Alice VanWart. - Journals.
ABOUT ELIZABETH SMART:
By Heart: Elizabeth Smart, A Life (Viking, 1991) by Rosemary Sullivan
Elizabeth Smart: A Fugue Essay on Women and Creativity (Women's Press, 2004) by Kim Echlin. 237 pages, $19.95
FILM:
Elizabeth Smart: On The Side Of The Angels (60 min., 1991) directed and written by Maya Gallus, featuring Jackie Burroughs as Elizabeth Smart, narrated by Michael Ondaatje.
DISCUSSION:
There has been an Elizabeth Smart 'chat group' that can be contacted via e-mail at elizabethsmart-subscribe@yahoogroups.ca
[BCBW 2015]
Articles: 1 Article for this author
About Elizabeth Smart – A bibliography prepared by Ted Rowcliffe
Info
Adachi, Ken
-"Tracing A Writer In The Making"; a review of Necessary Secrets' - Toronto Star 29 November 1986
- New Light On Elizabeth Smart";, Toronto Star 10 Jan 1988
Barfoot, Joan
- Review of 'Labyrinth of Desire' - Quill and Quire v 67(2) F'01 p32
Barker, Christopher
- Life at Tilty Mill"; Granta, 80 - The Group
- "The Arms of the Infinite";, 2005 Pomona
Barker, George
-"The Dead Seagull"; Lehman, London 1950
Barr, Ann
-"Mourned by The Rogues And Rascals"; (Obituary) in Brick- A Journal of Reviews, Spring 1986 (previously published in The Observer)
Beaucage, Rejean
-"Each....and Every Inch"; Voir 22 Oct 2002
Bemrose, John
- 'Rebel Angel: Elizabeth Smart found beauty amid squalor' - Maclean's Magazine, Mon 08 Apr 91
Bishop, Patricia
12, No. 2 - Winter 1992
Bissett, Judith
-"Each....and Every Inch"; a l'Usine C"; CHOQ Radio 18 Oct 2002
-"Elizabeth Smart....en spectacle"; CHOQ Radio 23 Oct 2002
Bouvier, Rita
-"I Write"; in "Blueberry Clouds"; Thistledown, 1999
Boyd, Cathie
"A Woman Of Strong Feelings"; Scotsman 8 May 2002
Bradbury, Patricia.
Rev. of "Autobiographies By Elizabeth Smart";, Christina Burridge ed. Quill and Quire 53.11 (1987): 27.
Brandon, Victoria
-"Perversity Principle in Canadian Literature"; in "The Canadian Book of Snobs"; Hounslow 1998
Brennan, Mary
-"No Longer In The Dark"; (review) Glasgow Herald 14 May 2002
-"Each.....And Every Inch"; (review) Glasgow Herald, 16 May 2002
Brown Mark
"Affairs of the Heart and Hollywood's Darkside Uncovered"; - Scotland on Sunday 19 May 2002
Burkhart, Hugh
-"Recovering the hot thing: an interview with Rosemary Sullivan"; - Windsor Review - v 33(2) Fall '00 pp1-11
Burt, Stephen
"Popular Music"; University of Oklahoma 1999
Cameron, Elspeth
-"A Delicate Imbalance-A review of By Heart"; Canadian Forum 1999
Carson, Marilyn
-"Elizabeth Smart: Poetry and Passion in Ottawa"; in e-book "Literary Trips: Following In The Footsteps of Fame";, Victoria Brook, editor
Chadwick, Alan
"Each....and Every Inch"; - Montreal Metro Life 16 May 2002
Chandler, Melanie
-"Novel That Cried Out Against Convention"; Review of Audiotape of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept - Coach House Talking Books nd
-A Timid Canadian On A Passionate Quest"; Review of By Heart - Vancouver Sun 30 March 1991
Coady, Lynn
-"Swept Away By Passion: Rosemary Sullivan Says It's Not Just The World's Carrie Bradshaw's Who Are Fools For Love, Women Who Know Better....,"; Vancouver Sun 26 May 2001 E17
Contemporary Literary Criticism
-Vol 54 pp411-427, Elizabeth Smart 1913-1986, includes: Adele Freedman 1976, Anita Krumins 1976, Jeremy Treglown 1978, Anne Stevenson 1978, Michael Brian Oliver 1978,
Jean Mallinson 1978 and 1980, Lorraine McMullen 1982, Heather Henderson 1985, Alice Van Wart 1986, Audrey Thomas 1987 Patricia Morley 1988
Cook, Judy (ed)
"The Minerva Collection of 20th Century Women's Fiction Vol. II"; Quality Paper Backs London 1991
Cuff, John Haslett
-"Television"; Globe and Mail 26 Sept 1991
Echlin, Kim
-"Elizabeth Smart: A Fugue Essay on Women and Creativity"; Women's Press Toronto 2004
English, John
- "Shadow of Heaven - The Life of Lester Pearson"; - Volume One: 1897-1948
Fetherling, Douglas
- "Edging Out on a Limb"; - Books in Canada v 25(3) April 1996 p 37
- "At Large - review of The Chameleon Poet: A Life of George Barker- by Robert Fraser";
Vancouver Sun, November 23, 2002
Fothergill, Robert
-"Creatively treating actuality: a conversation with Robert Fothergill";
(about his play Public Lies) Canadian Theatre Review - Summer 1994 (79/80) pp 80-84
Ford, Andrew
-"A Terrible Whiteness"; in 24 Hours (Australian magazine) n.d.
Fraser, Robert
-"A Chameleon Poet: A Life of George Barker";, Jonathon Cape, London 2002
Freedman, Adele
-"Vibrant Sleeper"; The Canadian Forum, Vol. LVI, No 660, April 1976 pp 36-37
French, William
-"Elizabeth Smart: A Hidden Author, A Hidden Novel"; in Globe and Mail, 20 Dec 1975 p27
- "Hunting Down Writers";, The Globe and Mail, Staff Memories, March 2004
http://www.globeandmail.com/special/globe160/memories/staffmem/french.html
Gabereau, Vicki
-"This Won't Hurt A Bit"; Collins Toronto 1987 (3 pages of 1983 ES interview)
Gallus, Maya
- "Elizabeth's Garden: Elizabeth Smart on the Art of Gardening"; (review) in Quill & Quire March 1990
-"Elizabeth Smart: On The Side of the Angels"; (transcript of video sound track)
Gascoyne, David
-"Elizabeth Smart: Introduction to 'The Collected Poems of Elizabeth Smart"; Paladin 1992 pp 9-17 in Selected Prose, 1934-1996, Edited by Roger Scott
Gauthier, Patrick
-"Each....and Every Inch";: "l'Art Qui Lave Plus Blanc"; 24 Oct 2002 Le Journal
Givner, Joan
-" A magical meeting of biographer and subject"; - Review: By Heart - Globe and Mail - March 16, 1991
Godbert, Geoffrey (ed)
-"Freedom To Breathe: Modern Prose Poetry From Beaudelaire to Pinter"; Stride Exeter 2002
Goddard, John
-"An Appetite For Life"; in Books in Canada June/July 1982 pp 7-12
Govier, Katherine
-"That Smart Woman"; Globe and Mail 12 April 1978 pp 10-11 Fanfare
-"The Night-tender"; pp 185-202 in "Fables of Brunswick Street";, Penguin, 1985
- "Tribute - Elizabeth Smart"; - Quill & Quire, May 1986
Grace, Sherrill
- "Breaking Silence"; - Review of 'By Heart' - Canadian Literature 133
Summer'1992 pp146-49
Graham, W. Sidney
-"The Nightfisherman: Selected Letters of W.S. Graham"; Manchester, Carcarnet, 1999
Grainger, James
- Review of 'Tell It Slant' by Beth Follett - Quill & Quire v 67(7) Jl'01 pp36-37
Greaves, John
-"Daily Modernism: The Literary Diaries of Virginia Woolfe, Antonia White, Elizabeth Smart and Anais Nin"; By Elizabeth Podnieks (review) in Review of English Studies, Vol. 53, Issue 210, May 2002 pp287-289
Grosskurth, Phyllis
- "A Variance of Verdict"; - Review of 'By Heart: Elizabeth Smart A Life' - Books in Canada - May 1991 pp 45-46
Gwyn, Richard
- Elizabeth Smart - 'One of life's givers' Toronto Star, 9 March 1986
Heaps, Denise Adele
-"The Inscription of Feminine Joussance in Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept"; in Studies in Canadian Literature 19(1) 1994
Henderson, Heather
-"Breaking The Silence"; in MacLeans Magazine, Vol. 98, No. 26 July 1, 1985, p65
Hoogland, Cornelia
- "The Elizabeth Smart Poems"; - Poetry Canada, Vol 12 No 3 & 4, 1992 p 23
- "The Elizabeth Smart Poems - The Fiddlehead, No 173 Autumn 1992 UNB, Fredericton
- "Marrying The Animals"; - Brick Books 1995
Horne, Dee
-"Elizabeth Smart's Novel-Journal"; in Studies in Canadian Literature 16(2) 1991
Hrabi, Dale
-"One From The Heart: Biographer rekindles flame of great literary passion"; Montreal Gazette - March 16, 1991 P - B42;
Idler, The
-"Read And Remarked"; review of Juvenilia - Sept/Oct 1988
Jackson, Marni.
Rev. of By Heart: Elizabeth Smart: A Life, by Rosemary Sullivan. Saturday Night 106.4 (1991): 52-54
Jolley, Elizabeth
-"By The Waters of Babylon"; in Australian and New Zealand Studies in Canada 9 (1993)
Karasick-McMurrich, Irene
- Review - Autobiographies, Canadian Materials for Schools, XVII/1 Jan'89
Karkut, Ted
- "Elizabeth Smart: On The Side of the Angels"; - Visual Media - Nov./Dec. '92
Keefer, Janice Kulyk
- "Elizabeth Smart, aetatis 70"; - Malahat Review (100) 1992 pp150-151
- "Marrying the Sea"; by Janice Kulyk Keefer reviewed by Ruth Panofsky
Quill & Quire - v 64 S'98 pg 56
Knelman, Martin
-"Art, Smart, A New Start"; in Toronto Life, 2514(Oct1991) pp 15-16
Krumins, Anita
-"A Paean To Pain"; in WAVES, 4(3) Spring-Summer 1976 pp 85-88
Landesman, Jay
-"Jaywalking"; -Wiedenfeld and Nicolson - London 1992
Lazar, Daniel
-"The Non-Fiction Canon (?): Elizabeth Smart, Colette and M.F.K. Fisher"; Associated Writing Programs Chronicle, Vol 24(6) 1991-1992
Ledger, Brent
- "Telling necessary secrets.....art beyond city limits.....from camp to haute cuisine - Elizabeth Smart's journals: dress rehearsal for a novel"; - Quill & Quire
February 1987
Lewis, Nigel
-trancript of "Sunday Morning"; CBC Radio 29 Aug 1982
Litt, Toby
- " Cult Choice: By Grand Central Station"; - Penguins Readers Group
http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/packages/uk/readers/june02/cult_grandcentral.html
Lobdell, David
-"Eros in the Age of Anxiety: Elizabeth Smart and Louise Maheux-Forcier"; in Essays on Canadian Writing No 40, Spring 1990
Macleans Magazine
"An appetite for writers"; (re Rosemary Sullivan) Mon 18 Sep 95
Mallick, Heather
- "Weighting the Worth of Govier"; Toronto Sun
Mallinson, Jean
-"The Figures of Love: Rhetoric In By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept";, no. 10 Spring 1978 pp108-118
-"Smart's Proverbs of Hell"; in Essays on Canadian Writing No. 12, Fall 1978 pp134-143
Marquis, Chantel
"Culture"; - Gazette des Femmes 1 Sept 2002
McCormick, Marion
"Elizabeth Smart: Love Left Her Battered But Not Wrecked"; review of Necessary Secrets - Montreal Gazette 9 Jan 1987
McGregor, Roy
-"Poet's History Baffles Bureaucrats"; Toronto Star 22 March 1983
McMillan, Joyce
-"I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar"; (review) Glasgow Herald May 16, 2002
McMullen, Lorraine
-"A Canadian Heloise: Elizabeth Smart and the Feminist Adultery Novel"; in Atlantis A Woman Studies Journal 4(1) Fall 1978 pp 76-85
-"Elizabeth Smart's Lyrical Novel 'By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept' " in Modern Times: A Critical Anthology, Vol III, edited by John Moss, NC Press, 1982 pp133- 145
-Opinions and Notes."Elizabeth Smart 1913-1985"- Canadian Literature - A Quarterly of Criticism and Review - Issue 1111 - Winter 1986 - www.canlit.ca/archive/cl_111.html
-"'Behold thou art fair my love; behold thou art fair' The Language oif Love in Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept";. In La Femme, son corps et la religion: approaches pluridiciplinaires. Ed Elisabeth J. Lacelle. Montreal: Bellarmin 1983 pp 184-193
Meyer, Bruce and Brian O'Riordan
-"Elizabeth Smart: Fact and Emotional Truth"; in Interview With Fourteen Canadian Writers, Anansi Toronto 1994
Mezie, Kathy
-"The Space of Positions and the Space of Position-Takings: The Construction of the Reader in Elizabeth Smart's Journals"; in La Creation Bibliographiques/Biographical Creation, Presses Universitaires de Rennes 1997
Mills, John
- "The Whirligigs of Something or Other:A Review of Necessary Secrets"; - Essays on Canadian Writing Spring 1989 pp 161-168
Morley, Patricia
-"Surprised by Joy"; in Canadian Literature, No. 116, Spring 1988, pp225-227
Morton, Brian
-"Locking horns with an enigma - The chameleon poet: a life of George
Barker"; - Sunday Herald 27 Jan 2002
Muir, Robin
-"John Deakin-Photographs"; Vendome Press (excerpts re ES)
Oliver, Michael Brian
-"Elizabeth Smart: Recognition"; in Essays on Canadian Writing No. 12, Fall 1978 pp106-133
-"Double or Nothing"; in The Fiddlehead, No. 126 Summer 1980, pp127-131
Ondatje, Michael
-"Elizabeth Smart"; - Brick- A Journal of Reviews, Spring 1986
Open Book
-Transcript CBC TV 7 March 2004
Park Elaine
"Biography Has Two Tales To Tell"; review of By Heart. Calgary Herald 18 May 1991 E6
Patton, Jo Anna Burns
-Review of 'Juvenilia' - Canadian Materials for Schools XVI/ 5 September 1988 p 170
Peters Julie
-"Art, Poetry and Music Theatre Merge In Each....and Every Inch"; - McGill Tribune 5 Nov 2002
Peterson, Leslie
- Sun Book Editor wrote 'Poetic memories of passion that shook society' Vancouver Sun - Dec 14, 1982
Petty, Chris
- "New work sheds little light on life of Elizabeth Smart"; review of Autobiographies - Vancouver Sun August 1, 1987
Podnieks, Elizabeth
-"Keep out/keep out/ your snooting snout......The Irresistible Journals of Elizabeth Smart"; in A/B Autobiographical Studies 11(1) Spring 1996 pp 56-81
-"Daily Modernism-The Literary Diaries of Virginia Wolff, Antonia White, Elizabeth Smart and Anais Nin"; McGill-Queens University Press - Montreal/Kingston 2000
Potvin, Rose (ed)
-"Passion and Conviction: The Letters of Graham Spry"; - Canadian Research Centre, University of Regina 1992 (excerpts re ES)
Pybuss, Cassandra
-"The Dead Seagull-George Barker"; in Lost Classics, M Ondaatje et al (eds) Knopf 2000
Rooke, Constance
- Book Review 'By Heart: Elizabeth Smart A Life' by Rosemary Sullivan
reviewed by Constance Rooke (wife of Sullivan's friend Leon Rooke -ETR) Malahat Review 96 Autumn 1991 pp108-09
Ritchie, Charles
-"My Grandfather's House: Scenes of Childhood and Youth"; MacMillan 1987 (excerpts concerning ES)
Rooke, Constance
-Rev. of By Heart: Elizabeth Smart: A Life, by Rosemary Sullivan. Malahat Review 96 (1991):108-109.
Rowcliffe Ted
(with Alan Twigg) - "Elizabeth Smart"; BC Bookworld Author Bank
Sage, Lorna
-"Women In The House of Fiction: Postwar Women Novelists"; Routledge 1992
St. Jacques, Sylvie
-"Sur la traces d'Elizabeth Smart"; Montreal La Presse 25 Oct 2002 C3
St. Martin, Lori
"Une Femme Singuliere"; Le Devoir 20 Oct 2002
Sand, Cy-thea
-"The Trap of Language"; (review of By Grand Central Station) in Radical Reviewer No. 6 Spring 1982 pp 12-15
-"The Novels of Elizabeth Smart: Biological Imperialism and the Trap of Language"; in Canadian Women's Studies 5(1) Fall 1983
http://terarist.freeservers.com/sansplash.gif
Scotsman, The
-"Woman of Strong Feelings"; (review of Each....) 8 May 2002
Sellwood, Jane
- "Confessing The Mother:Uno Chiyo's Confessions of Love (1935) and Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945) - presented to the Women, Languages and Technologies International Conference, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, July 1997
Sigurdson, Norman
- "A review of 'Juvenilia' in Belles Lettres - A Review of Books By Women
Simon, Paula
-"; Still Stirring Up Trouble, Two Years After Her Death Author Elizabeth Smart Commands Attention"; in Alberta Report 15(45) Oct 24 1988 pp 35-36
Smart, Elizabeth
-"By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept"; Foreword by Brigid Brophy, Panther, Grenada
-"Comforter, Where, Where Is Your Comforting?"; Canadian Poetry 3(55) April 1939 p35
Sullivan, Rosemary
-"Tantalous Love"; in Labyrinth of Desire, Harper Fleming 2001 pp103-113
- "Muse In A Female Ghetto: A Portrait of Elizabeth Smart"; : Female Complaints (regular column) - ThisMag 20:20-24 Aug-Sept 1986
Sutherland, Katherine Gail
-"Bloodletters: Configurations of Female Sexuality in Canadian Women's Writing"; - Ph. D. Thesis, York University 1993 (abstract only)
Thomas, Audrey
-"Fool For Love"; in Books in Canada Vol. 126, No. 3, April 1987, pp17-18
Thomas, Clara
-"Pursuing A Smart and Talented Woman"; review of 'Elizabeth Smart: A Fugue Essay on Women and Creativity' by Kim Echlin - Books In Canada 33(7) Oct 2004 p23
Thompson, Judith
-(Interview With by Richard Knowles) "Computers Keep Your Office Tidier";- Canadian Theatre Review (81) Winter 1994 pp 29-31
Tostevin, Lola L.
-Rev. of Autobiographies, by Elizabeth Smart. Canadian Literature (1989): 169-172.
- Rev. of Juvenilia: Early Writings Of Elizabeth Smart, ed. Alice Van Wart. Canadian Literature (1989): 169-172.
Tousignant, Francois
-"Le Passion Selon Elizabeth Smart"; in Le Devoir, Montreal, Oct 19-20, 2002
-"Un Vrai Aboutissement Riche d'Avenir"; - Le Devoir Montreal 24 Oct 2002
Treglown, Jeremy
-"With Nobs On"; in New Statesman, Vol. 95, No. 3963, March 10, 1978, p273
Van Wart, Alice
-Introduction to "Necessary Secrets: The Journals of Elizabeth Smart"; edited by Alice Van Wart
-"By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept: The Novel As Poem"; in Studies in Canadian Literature 11(1) pp38-41
-elizabeth smart: a reconsideration - Brick Fall'87 pp50 - 54
-"Writing A Life:Elizabeth Smart's Aggressive Spirit Forced Her Biographer To Get It Right";
Books In Canada 20(3) April 1991 pp29-32
-"Life Out of Art: Elizabeth Smart's Early Journals"; in Essays of Life Writing From Genre to Practice. Marlene Kaldar (ed.) York University Press 1989
Wachtel, Eleanor
-"Stations of the Womb"; in Books in Canada October 1978 (review of the Assumption of the Rogues...)
-"Passions Survivor"; in City Woman, Summer 1980, pp 51-55
-"Smart By Heart"; Quill and Quire February 1991
Wagner, Vit
-"Play Probes Our Cruel Judgements"; Toronto Star 25 April 1989
Walker, Morley
-"A Life of Self-Destruction"; - Winnipeg Free Press 30 March 1991 p58
Walton, Heather
-"Extreme Faith in the Work of Elizabeth Smart and Luce Irigaray"; in Literature and Theology 16(1) March 2002
Wakentin, Juliet
- "Elizabeth Smart: A Passionate Life"; - Toronto Life Fashion, Sept. 1991
Warsh, Sylvia Maultash
=Poetry - "To Elizabeth Smart, wherever you are";; Canadian Forum, November 1992
Weir, Lorraine
-"Elizabeth Smart - 27 Dec 1913 - 4 March 1986" in Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 88 Second Series.
Weldon , Fay
-Auto da Fay - an autobiography - 2002 - Key Porter - Toronto (four pages relate interaction with ES at Crawfords advertising and include an anecdote re George)
Wright, Nancy E.
-"The Proper Lady and the Second World War in Elizabeth Smart's Narratives"; in Essays on Canadian Writing No. 48 Winter 1992-1993
[2005]
